1. Field of the Invention
Methods and apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to a transport stream, and more particularly, to processing and transmitting transport stream packets, and processing the transmitted transport stream packets.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to transmit audio-visual (AV) data, a transport stream (TS) format is generally used. When the AV data is received or transmitted, time synchronization between the transmitting and receiving terminals is very important. Therefore, the transmitting terminal and the receiving terminal transmit and receive packets including time information, and the terminals attempt synchronization by using various algorithms.
FIG. 1 is a conceptual view for explaining a method of transmitting transport stream packets according to the related art.
The apparatus on the left contains a TS generator, which is a source for providing transport stream packets and may be a storage medium for storing image data, a streaming application, or a Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) encoder. The apparatus on the right contains a TS consumer, which consumes the transport stream packets and may be a display device, a multiplexer/demultiplexer (MUX/DEMUX), or a MPEG decoder.
The transmitting terminal transmits the transport stream packets to the receiving terminal through a network interface according to the network type such as Ethernet or wireless LAN. The TS generator of the transmitting terminal and the TS consumer of the receiving terminal control the transmission using information included in the transport stream packets, but the network interface does not participate in this process. More specifically, a medium access control (MAC) layer or a physical layer does not determine whether or not data transmitted from an upper layer is a transport stream packet, and thus processes all data by the same method, and does not perform control manipulation for the transport stream packet.
Therefore, according to the related art, in the process of transmitting the transport stream packets through a network, latency and jitter may occur, preventing the receiving terminal from outputting images precisely. In addition, to prevent the latency and jitter, the TS generator of the transmitting terminal and the TS consumer of the receiving terminal have to include additional modules in an application layer to perform precise synchronization on the transport stream packets. The transmitting and receiving terminals also have to exchange packets for synchronization. Accordingly, implementation is excessively complex.